Disinformation was a Warfare good articles nominee, but did not meet the good article criteria at the time. There may be suggestions below for improving the article. Once these issues have been addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake.
Article milestones Date Process Result January 18, 2017 Guild of Copy Editors Copyedited February 15, 2017 Good article nominee Not listed January 22, 2017 Guild of Copy Editors Copyedited
Current status: Former good article nominee

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Does this article really belong under the "War" series? Disinformation does not necessarily involve "warfare" imo. Dingus1233 (talk) 22:28, 4 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

agree: I think that disinformation is not really part of the war series. Part of disinformation certainly could be classified as hybrid warfare, but most of it is media manipulation and internet manipulation can can be done for harm and profit, according the its definition by the EU code of practice on disinformation MexFin (talk) 12:45, 26 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Mathglot The section on US disinformation has a section about a disinformation campaign against China, which is a fact reported by Reuters https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-covid-propaganda/

The issue is that part of the paragraph describes the situation as "payback" against China. However, the source cannot be corroborated. The uncorroborated statement by @Amigao is the following.

"The campaign was described as "payback" for COVID-19 disinformation by China directed against the U.S." using the following reference https://www.military.com/daily-news/2024/06/14/pentagon-stands-secret-anti-vaccination-disinformation-campaign-philippines-after-reuters-report.html

The problem is that I cannot find confirmation that any spokesperson from the US actually corroborates this statement. Therefore, I cannot see how military.com is anything else than an opinion.

Therefore, I rewrote the statement keeping the original Reuters source, but characterising it as "vaccine diplomacy" according to the source from The Conversation, which does precisely what it says: Explain how the fact (that the US did conduct a disinformation campaign against Chinese Vaccines) can be explained as part of a known tactic (vaccine diplomacy)

"The campaign, which ran from 2020 to mid-2021, has been described as part of a vaccine diplomacy campaign aiming to foster client-state relationships with the Phillipines." citing a reference from The Conversation. http://theconversation.com/us-military-launched-a-secret-anti-vax-campaign-in-the-philippines-heres-why-im-not-surprised-232639

I think my statement is closer to encyclopedic knowledge, because the US did not acknowledge that the campaign is payback MexFin (talk) 12:42, 26 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

MexFin, First, The military.com report is news reporting, thus presumably peer-reviewed, and TheConversation is one person's opinion, and may sometimes be used because many of their guest writers are domain experts, but under other terms (WP:RSOPINION) than a peer-reviewed source. (If you disagree about the reliability of Military.com, the place to start is at WP:RSN.) Second, the military.com article is quoting the Reuters article as the source for that expression, and they are considered about as reliable as you can get. Even one source would have been sufficient, but you have two, one quoting the other. Therefore, there is no problem using it in our article. There is no requirement, by the way, that the subject of a report (the U.S., in this case) acknowledge anything regarding reports made about it in order for them to be usable in an article. Mathglot (talk) 16:37, 26 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Mathglot Thank you for your opinions, but I just want to clarify that I believe we are having two separate discussions. The first one is about sources and the second is about content. I Think you focus on the references, while I am focusing on the content. I will start with sources first.

(1) References: I am not questioning the reliability of the news references. Both are used for different purposes. One builds a statement of the disinformation campaign (Reuters and others), and the other contextualizes it as part of vaccine diplomacy (the conversation).

(2) Content: The characterization of this campaign as "payback" is pretty important and, in my view it is wrong to use it in the Wikipedia article. The one committing the disinformation campaign is the US, which a source within the article characterizes as "indefensible." However, the text "payback" justifies it as something that arguably China deserves. The only time the word payback is used in the Reuters article is in the lead. It is not attributed and does not appear anywhere else. Now, as you mention, the military.com article is essentially referencing the reuters article, and citing the lead about payback as if it was from an original source, when it is not. I do not mind citing the military.com source, but not as a direct quote because it (the quote) is just referencing the lead in the Reuters article, not a quote from a source. For instance, the aljazeera article does not use the word payback and just reports what happened: a disinformation campaign against the vaccines, explaining it has been criticized as it puts lives in danger for geopolitical gain. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/6/14/pentagon-ran-secret-anti-vax-campaign-to-undermine-china-during-pandemic

I hope this brings a bit of clarity. MexFin (talk) 06:00, 27 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

You use the word "source" in an interesting way, as if it would be better to get the actual quoted words of someone involved in the affair as somehow the real or legitimate "source" (which however would be both primary, and opinion) rather than the words of the news report (secondary, peer-reviewed, and independent). I rather think you are viewing this whole thing backwards. Reuters is the source—the secondary source: it can hardly be exceeded in terms of reliability, and if we decide to echo one of terms they use it could hardly come from a more impeccable source. Mathglot (talk) 07:17, 27 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

This is a good conversation, @Mathglot that actually goes back to WP:RS, and more precisely to WP:RSHEADLINES (I will copy it below). Reuters is a reliable news organization, absolutely. However, not every word in the Reuters article is a factual statement, especially not its headline or subheadline. This crucial distinction is the key point in WP:RSHEADLINES. I quote (my emphasis):

"News headlines—including subheadlines—are not a reliable source. If the information is supported by the body of the source, then cite it from the body. Headlines are written to grab readers' attention quickly and briefly; they may be overstated or lack context, and sometimes contain exaggerations or sensationalized claims with the intention of attracting readers to an otherwise reliable article. They are often written by copy editors instead of the researchers and journalists who wrote the articles."

The payback section I am arguing is from a reliable source, Reuters, but it is problematic as per WP:RSHEADLINES. The military.com article wrongly quotes the sub headline as if it were a news fact, which is not. It comes from the editorialization of the Reuters article, precisely the distinction that WP:RSHEADLINES warns about and the point I am making here. MexFin (talk) 08:06, 27 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The term disinformation occurs in Leon Uris' novel of 1967, with the exact meaning in this article. rudra (talk) 06:37, 15 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I think the section on disinformation research makes the article a bit bulky and challenging to read. Perhaps it could be important to separate disinformation research in the same way that we have a separate article on disinformation attack. The reason is that several of the points in the current article are specific research findings (about the consequences of disinformation during the US 2016 Presidential election). They are very important, but perhaps it should be its own article that can focus on the academic contributions to disinformation?

What do you think? MexFin (talk) 13:31, 16 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]